...no, I didn't mean it like THAT. I meant when it comes to OTHERS making use of them...
A certain anonymous website has made much of the fact that a writing of mine was posted to a pro-Orthodox website dealing with helping Prots become Orthodox. A few facts:
1) I did not give permission for my writings to be posted on the site indicated.
2) The piece in question was originally posted on my blog in two separate places; my friend, Chris Orr (former WELS, now Orthodox), asked permission to put it on his blog and I gave that, in standing with an open policy on anything I write.
3) The piece in question, consists entirely of citations from the Lutheran Symbols; the unLutheran thing about this is?
I am somewhat at a loss to understand its usefulness to Orthodoxy, but whatever. It was intended to engender discussion about the nature of the "quia" subscription to the Symbols, a purely inter-Lutheran question, and one that was and is being discussed in the District I serve as the pastors of that District engage in a study of the Augsburg Confession.
So now you know...
It's funny that one attempts to be some kind of "more Lutheran than thou" all the while operating an anonymous blog. Didn't Luther say, in the Heidelberg Disputation, that a theologian of the cross calls the thing what it actually is? Apparently that doesn't apply in the case of one's own name.
ReplyDeleteFr. Cota
Pastor Weedon,
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good fight and supply all of us still with a LOVE for Jesus Christ and HIS WORD that increases each and everyday.Hope to see something by PATRICK this week on your outstanding BLOG.
Your Brother in Jesus Christ
Salvatore
P.S. Your PREACHING is known and LOVED.
"How beautifully he combines the two, faith and patience! For faith causes the heart to cling fast to celestial things and to be carried away and to dwell in things that are invisible. For patience is necessary in order that by it the heart may be sustained not only in its contempt for the visible things that attract but also in its endurance of those that rage. For this is how it happens that the believer hangs between heaven and earth, and, as Ps. 68:13 says, 'sleeps among the sheepfolds,' that is, that in Christ he is suspended in the air and crucified." Martin Luther
Dear Fr. Cota,
ReplyDeleteNo comment. : )
Dear Sal,
Thank you, brother, for your kind words. You better believe St. Paddy will not go by without notice! "I bind unto myself" at the very least!
Pax!
Fr. Cota,
ReplyDeleteI've thought a lot about why someone would hide his identity.
It all comes down to fear--the same thing that leads someone to attack others from the shadows.
And while John -14's anti-Orthodox scorecard is 100% (the Lutheran Confessions themselves are Orthophile, if we judge by their statements about Orthodoxy), he's also said critical things about current practice in the Missouri Synod that could make him vulnerable--assuming, as seems more obvious every day, that he's not a pastor. Pastors (men who have been given a divine call to serve a congregation) enjoy a modicum of job security and stability that faculty and workers in synodical institutions simply do not.
It does seem strange that the strongest anti-Orthodox blogs are divided between those who allow comments, but don't reveal their names, and those who reveal their names but censor comments. I honor bloggers like Fr. Petersen, who reveal their names *and* allow uncensored comment. (Note, by the way, that he is a pastor.)